


all the things you said you’d never say (and you said anyway)

by ozmissage



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-09
Updated: 2012-07-09
Packaged: 2017-11-09 12:27:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozmissage/pseuds/ozmissage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six snapshots in the lives of Stannis and Davos post-ADwD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the things you said you’d never say (and you said anyway)

i.

Davos never dreams of kissing his king. He never wakes to the phantom sensation of Stannis’s beard scraping across his face, burning his cheeks. He has a wife at home, and three sons left to his name. To dream such a thing would be improper. A madness, even. It is no secret that he bears great love for Stannis. Stannis’s people may love him not, but Davos owes Stannis everything. Stannis took his fingertips and left him good fortune in their stead.

Absently he reaches for his luck, forgetting once again that he lost the bones to the sea. It’s an old instinct, one that won’t be forgotten anytime soon. He pushes the dream that he would swear he never had from his mind and stands to stretch the sleep from his joints. His bones crack and he moans softly. He’s far too old a man to be sleeping on a bed of straw, but the war has left the road an inhospitable place. Inns are shuttered, and men are fearful of letting strangers bed down in their homes even when there is the promise of coin. Davos understands. Winter has arrived and coin means nothing now. Food and shelter are the only commodities that matter.

Davos raises a hand to his face; he can almost swear the skin there is still tingling. He tells himself it has been too long since he last saw his sweet wife. Any man who has gone wanting as long as Davos has is bound to dream strange things in the night. It has been too long since he stood by his king’s side as well, but he can return to neither of them until he finds the little Stark boy.

Davos stretches one more time before wrapping his cloak tight around his body. Beyond the door, the first winds of winter are howling, promising a day that will be as cold as it is long. Davos will have nothing but memories to warm him on the road, memories of his boys, of the sea, wide and open before him, memories of his wife’s gentle hands, memories of the dreams he never dreamt.

He prays to the Seven to guide his journey, to bring him to the child, so that he may himself return home.

ii.

Stannis does not wish that Davos was at his side. To rely too much on anyone other than one’s self is a folly, and Stannis has never been a fool.

Stannis takes Winterfell in a matter of hours. Hungry and half-frozen his dwindling army may be, but Bolton and his bastard have lost all control of the men within their walls. It is chaos that Stannis finds, and he is a wise enough man to know chaos will undo an army every time.

“I want Ramsay brought to me,” Stannis commands, sending the men at his side scurrying. The fight is almost at an end, most of the Boltons’ forces have relented, and many a body litters the yard to remind the few who persist in fighting what waits for them if they persist. Stannis is tired and there’s a hunger burning deep in his gut, but his triumph cuts through both. He turns his eyes to the ruin of Winterfell. The castle is little more than a pile of rubble now, but everything can be rebuilt with time. No one knows this better than Stannis.

The Onion Knight’s face flickers through his mind once more. Perhaps it is not a weakness to wish Ser Davos could bear witness to his victory. None have been truer to him than Davos, none have born him more respect. To think that the man died doing his bidding leaves Stannis with a pang of remorse, but he does not call it guilt. Davos bent the knee to Stannis. He died with honor, he died doing his duty, and that is a good death. Far better than dying a traitor or a coward.

“Your Grace.”

Stannis turns, his reverie broken. One of his men stands before him with a prisoner. It is not the bastard, but Stannis knows the man all the same and the sight of him makes his blood turn to ice.

“I found this one in a cage,” the knight says, but Stannis ignores his words and keeps his eyes on the prisoner instead.

“You are meant to be dead,” Stannis says evenly.

Mance Rayder looks up at Stannis and grins, several of his teeth are missing and one of his eyes is swollen shut, but the false king from beyond The Wall is still very much alive. Rayder winks at Stannis, and Stannis clenches his jaw at the insolence.

“My apologies, ser,” Mance replies. “I’ll try harder next time.”

iii.

Davos does not embrace his king when he sees him again, but Stannis clamps a hand on the back of Davos’s neck. It is a soft gesture from a hard man and Davos understands what it costs Stannis to show even this small affection.

“There was news that you were dead,” Stannis says.

“It was a prisoner’s head that was mounted upon the castle wall, my liege.”

Stannis nods once and releases Davos. The warmth of his hand lingers on the back of Davos’s neck.

“Much has happened since last we spoke,” Stannis says as he points Davos toward a chair near the fire. Davos knows much of Stannis’s story already. He knows his king won the battle at Winterfell, he knows of Melisandre’s deception, of Jon Snow’s death and resurrection. “It seems I am not the chosen one after all.”

There is a grim sort of humor to Stannis’s words. Many would miss it, but not Davos.

“Do you still seek the throne?” Davos asks cautiously.

Stannis tosses more logs on the fire, and he seems to be almost transfixed by the flames. Davos wants nothing more in that moment than to turn Stannis away from the fire, to force Stannis to look at only him. His king has done enough staring into flames for one lifetime.

“The throne is still mine by rights, but it will have to wait. There is something more you should know, Ser Davos.”

Unbidden, the hairs on Davos’s arm rise, there is something in Stannis’s words that chills Davos far more than the now constant snowfalls ever could.

“What is it, my liege?”

Stannis turns to him then, there is something like sorrow in his eyes.

“Jon Snow is not the only man who has risen from the dead.”

iv.

Stannis never calls for Davos during a battle. He never has to. He turns and Davos is already there, at his back, sword in hand.

Each night the wights come and each night Stannis and Davos fight. For every one they cut down, five more seem to take their place. Every night brings more death until the very air is thick with it. Stannis’s wife is dead, as is Melisandre. His daughter and Davos’s son were sent to Winterfell along with Jon, Val and the babe who was not Mance Rayder’s son two moons ago, but Davos and Stannis do not know if their children survived the journey, or if they will turn one day with blade in hand to cut down the shade of their own kin.

Still they fight, holding back the flood of dead men threatening the gates at The Wall. They fight alongside knights, black brothers, and wildlings, but Stannis only truly trusts his Onion Knight.

Davos holds his sword in his left hand, and his swings are not as sure as they would be in his right.There has been more than one near miss. The smuggler is not as quick as he once was and his left hand has never been his dominant one. That is why Stannis chose his right hand—a punishment must carry the weight of a real cost.

“I might have spared you your fingertips if I had known what was on the horizon,” Stannis admits early one morning as they are bedding down for the day.

Davos pulls a black cloak around his shoulders and leans back onto the sagging pile of rags that he affectionately calls his bed. His face is drawn and gaunt, Davos never truly recovered after the Battle of Blackwater, but he would never admit his weakness to Stannis. That is but one more thing Stannis admires about Davos.

“It was a just thing,” Davos says, not for the first time. “In return you gave me a better life for me and my family; you gave me a place at your side. I do not miss them.”

Stannis turns from Davos then. Sleep is a precious thing these days, and the night’s war is better fought after a day’s rest. Davos will be there when Stannis wakes. He is certain of few things in life and the list grows shorter by the hour, but his belief in Davos’s loyalty never waivers.

v.

Davos does not call for Stannis when he falls. The wight has a hand wrapped around Davos’s throat, depriving him of air. Then he feels the sickening sensation of teeth sinking into the flesh of his shoulder and knows he has reached the end. The young man who was a smuggler, always slipping from one place to the next, swearing no allegiances, pledging no vows, would laugh at the notion that he might one day die on a battle field. And indeed, Davos laughs still.

Stannis’s blade cleaves straight through the wight’s neck. The sword he wields may not be a magic blade, but the song it sings as Stannis fights is no less sweet for it. Davos watches bleary-eyed and bleeding as Stannis fights the wights, pushing them away from Davos with every powerful swing of his blade. When a break appears, Stannis bends down to heft Davos onto his shoulder.

“Leave me,” Davos begins to protest, but Stannis is already carrying him back to the gates. Consciousness leaves Davos then and does not return for some time. When he wakes he is in the chambers of one of the castles. His brow is warm, too warm, and he finds moving to require far more effort than it should. Stannis is by his bedside, watching and waiting.

“Will you do it, my liege?” Davos’s voice hitches in his throat.

“Stannis,” Stannis corrects him.

“ _Stannis_. Will you end this for me? Will you make sure I don’t come back?”

“I will.” Stannis wrings a wet rag over Davos’s forehead. The coolness of the water is a great relief. “I had two brothers, Ser Davos. Two brothers I was bound to by blood. I will not lie to you as you lie dying and say you were like a brother to me. You showed me more love than either of them.”

Stannis bends down slightly, Davos can see the dirk in his hand. The last thing Davos feels is his king’s lips upon his brow, and the kiss of his king’s blade as it sinks into his chest.

vi.

Stannis lights the pyre himself, but it is not the red god he prays to as he watches the body burn. He prays to the Seven to guide his Onion Knight home to his sons. Neither he nor Davos were devout men, but he knows Davos would have appreciated the gesture.

He stands alone and watches the flames as they snake toward the sky, not moving until they have dwindled down to nothing more than smoke and ash.


End file.
